A new online platform called Kovet.Art will showcase works by graduates fresh out of UK colleges. It will also give guidance in areas such as sustaining a market, editioning and pricing as part of a mentoring scheme, says the company founder Saras Rachupalli.
Kovet.Art’s launch show, entitled Delineating Dreams, is due to go live online on 3 June. It includes works by eight artists including Max Gimson, a graduate of London’s Royal College of Art; Candice Jewell from Plymouth College of Art; and Kristy M. Chan from the Slade School of Fine Art. “Intensely subjective and often imbued with the qualities of Surrealism, the exhibition features work ranging from painting to photography and printmaking,” says the exhibition statement.
The new initiative enables “a closed number of top-class art degree students to develop their practice and profile in credible and authentic ways”, according to a statement. Rachupalli adds that “artists don’t easily get gallery representation straight out of university. We’ll work with the first group of artists for one year as part of a mentoring programme."
The price points for works available is usually under £10,000 (excluding taxes) and the company will take a percentage of any sales. “It’s more than an e-commerce platform,” Rachupalli says, adding that there will be “conversations on connoisseurship for the art curious”.
The Kovet.Art team includes Saras Rachupalli, Camilla Grimaldi and Averil Curci Courtesy of Kovet.Art
Rachupalli aims to organise four seasonal shows featuring works by emerging artists. Kovet.Art, which also runs an art advisory service alongside the online gallery, hopes to host pop-up exhibitions in London after lockdown. Asked if launching a business might prove challenging in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, she says that the current crisis “will affect how collectors respond and there might well be increased interest in alternative assets, but we want to be part of the conversation in pushing the critical role of art”.
Averil Curci, previously an art advisor, is the company’s director of curation and artist liaison. Camilla Grimaldi, the chief art officer at Kovet.Art, co-founded Brancolini Grimaldi, a contemporary photography gallery which launched in Rome and Florence before moving to London in early 2011.